


it’s all for you, for you (it’s always been for you)

by knewwellenough



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gay Eddie Kaspbrak, Gay Richie Tozier, IT Chapter Two Spoilers, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Post-Canon Fix-It, Reference to Canon Typical Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-14
Updated: 2019-09-14
Packaged: 2020-10-14 04:44:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20594921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knewwellenough/pseuds/knewwellenough
Summary: 95% of the time, richie has the constant urge to kiss eddie completely under control. he is veering dangerously towards that 5% danger zone.--post-canon fix-it fic. eddie lives, they both have trauma, it all works out.





	it’s all for you, for you (it’s always been for you)

**Author's Note:**

> title from "all for you" by night riots.
> 
> i have never read the book and i’ve only seen it chapter two once so this is not going to be good. however, this movie and pairing has me by the teeth so here we are.
> 
> this is deceptively,, long for a fic that can very easily be summarized by "richie and eddie are idiots who finally make out on a couch" but what can i say, they're a very easy couple to drone on about!
> 
> warning for reference to spoilers from "it: chapter two", if you missed that tag

The silence of the deadlights is jarring.

Somehow, the most confusing thing about the entirety of time spread out before him is the silence of it all. Richie can see for centuries, and the most sound his brain can register is the faint buzz of white noise, _ too much _ silence.

Distantly, he can tell there are sounds all around him. There is a numbness to his hands and feet that he can’t quite place. But the thoughts are gone just as quickly as they manage to enter his head, nothing but distractions from the expanse laid before him. Distractions from Eddie, who is smiling at him in all stages of life, who is there like life’s only constant.

Eddie, old and young and every stage in between, at every moment they could possibly spend together. Even without the deadlights Richie would have a hard time pulling himself away from this.

Subconsciously, Richie knows he’s going to die. But if it’s to the beat of Eddie’s quiet, slow-growing grin, he thinks he can accept that. It’s better than any other present alternative.

Richie is still caught up in the hazy promise of a painless lapse from life when the images before him turn haunting. He remembers oh-so distantly Beverley’s nightmares of all of their deaths, and, yeah, that seems to make sense. He watches everybody die in a horrible multitude of ways, in ways that should’ve already happened and in ways that might still come to pass. It’s the most morbid rendition of “Groundhog Day” he’s ever seen. In his right mind he would be horrified, but he can’t look away, can’t even really _ feel _ anything outside of a vaguely defined numbness, and so all he can do is absorb.

Eddie, once smiling, is now dying on top of him. He’s bleeding, and, even though Richie still can’t hear a damned thing, he’s screaming. They both are. A prickling sensation is making its way up Richie’s extremities, and _ fuck _ he hopes that’s it, he hopes that’s being eaten and over and done with. If he _ isn’t _ being eaten, he thinks, more far away than ever, then this is all going to come down on him like a shit ton of bricks later.

If he were to be asked later, Richie would’ve guessed he hung there in the deadlights for no less than a decade. Twenty years, at least. He’d seen so much that there was no possible way he spent any less than a quarter of his life in suspension.

And yet, just as suddenly as the lights and silence had taken him, suddenly his back was slamming against the rocks that, either moments or years ago, had been beneath his feet. Distantly, someone-- some_ thing _\-- is howling, and the noise bounces off every curve of the cave like a tidal wave.

Richie lays there on the ground, longer than he knows he should. He knows he needs to be getting up, hauling ass, checking to make sure Mike is alive-- but the haze of the deadlights is still on him. He still can’t feel all of himself, and for as _ loud _ as that creature is, he can’t quite hear much of anything else. When Eddie suddenly appears over him, he’s talking, and Richie can’t hear a thing.

Time is still agonizingly slow as Richie’s brain tries to process the urgent now and the endless barrage of images he’d been shown. He remembers the silent screams and the blood soaking through both of them. He realizes he recognizes the way Eddie is perched over him, shaking his shoulders in a death grip with giddy excitement. He realizes he knows how this ends.

And he can feel his face, previously scrunched up in both confusion and overstimulation, go slack with that realization. It’s like the air is weighted around them, and a thousand words and actions all fight to be the one Richie says or does first. He pushes Eddie to the side. He grabs the man and hugs him to his chest. He just screams _ move. _ He does _ something _.

He can do nothing. Blood splatters against his face.

Richie wakes up when his head slams against the floor.

In the foggy state between “definitely asleep” and “definitely less so”, Richie could swear the carpet under his hands is rock, jagged and wet and bloody. It isn’t until he completely freaks out and scrambles back, managing to run right into the side of his bed, that his senses catch up with the rest of him.

Home. California. Not Derry. Not Dead.

Richie freezes in his shaky panic and repeats that back to himself once or twice more. It’s pitch black and he’s blind as shit either way, but he knows where he is. He can recognize the sounds of traffic coming in through his cracked window, as quiet as the city ever is.

And yet.

Fumbling in the darkness, it takes a minute for Richie to find his glasses, and then to find the lights. When he looks at his bed, there’s a giant Richie-shaped sweat stain right there in the center.

He always gets those nightmares when he sleeps on his back.

A long, deep sigh escapes him, and Richie looks down at his hands. Shaking. Logically he knows that Pennywise is dead, that he is, in fact, standing in his apartment in California. But that nagging anxiety remains, loud insistence that some awful creature is going to spring from beneath his bed and drag him back into that cave. He’s fucking terrified of seeing those lights again.

Not quite blindly but just as frantically, Richie crawls back onto his bed and eventually pulls his phone from the twisted sheets. The fact that his hands are still shaking and sweaty doesn’t make it any easier to open the damn thing. And even with his glasses on, the light coming from the screen does just as much to blind him, eyes still sensitive from his sudden wake. But he doesn’t really need to see. He knows who he’s trying to call.

Even before he really knows, he knows.

Richie rubs at his eyes with one clammy hand, no doubt smudging up his glasses something awful, like it matters. It had already felt like half of his insides had crammed themselves into his ribs, and it only feels more claustrophobic with every long trill of the dial tone. After a few rings, the thought occurs to him to look at his hand. No blood.

Eddie isn’t dying on top of him, but, _ fuck _, it feels like he is.

He might’ve died already. Richie could be calling a dead man on a dead number, and about to have the world come crashing down on him.

But some higher power is looking out for him, because when Richie is just about ready to haul ass to his car and drive, he finally hears the line pick up.

“What could you _ possibly want _?”

Eddie sounds exhausted, just as abruptly yanked from sleep as Richie had been.

_ And he’s alive _, Richie’s brain supplies itself with the thought once, and then it has to glitch, because then it’s the only coherent thing bouncing around in his brain. It takes his voice way too long to catch up, and by the time it does, all he can do is laugh. Laugh about his own absurdity, at the absurdity of the goddamn clown, at the way his heart is still in his throat.

“Richie. _ Richie _.”

In one shaky breath, his laughing turns into crying. Richie shuts his eyes in an effort to force some goddamn composure on himself, smiling again even as he can feel the tears streaking down his cheeks. It takes him another minute to think of anything else to say besides _ God, Eds, I thought you were dead, you can’t ever fucking leave me like that _.

“Sorry. Sorry,” Richie takes a deep breath and chuckles, wiping again at his face and hoping his voice doesn’t give the crying away. “I, uh, I had the dream. About Derry.”

Over the phone, it’s sometimes hard to figure out what emotion Eddie is shifting to. In the silence before response, Richie takes another long breath, wishes that he could see Eddie’s face. He’d push it away if it got too close, too concerned, but he wants it there in front of him.

Eddie’s voice is still a husky sort of quiet when he speaks again, but the exasperated tone is gone from it. “Shit. Rich, are you,” There’s a pause as he shuffles, sitting up, probably. “Are you okay?”

Richie could respond with any number of quips to that. _ Yeah, Eds, I haven’t felt this good since I had a clown monster brainfuck me through space and time. Just called to make sure you weren’t physically turned into a kebab in front of me, just making sure you weren’t dead. How’s the business, still up to risk analyze like anything’s as risky as that shit? _

“Yeah, I’m fine. I didn’t kill myself trying to get out of bed so that’s something.”

This is not the first time Richie has had a nightmare about what he saw in the deadlights, nor is it the first time he’s called Eddie out of a gnawing fear that the dream had somehow been reality. But it’s been a few months since he’s blindly panicked like this; usually, in the aftermath of one of these nightmares, he can manage to get over himself until morning, until it’s no longer weird to try and call. Sometimes he’s called Bev, sometimes Mike, whoever he trusts most in the moment not to laugh at him.

It hasn’t been long since Richie has called Eddie, but it’s been a long time since it was like this.

The longer he sits there and has to think about it, the more Richie feels like crawling out of his own skin. He’s still terrified, and now he’s embarrassed on top of it.

“Anyway I don’t even know what fucking time it is--” Richie pulls back from his phone and squints, and it either says 2 or 3, and either one is _ too early _, “--sorry for fucking up the beauty sleep. I’ll see you around.”

If Eddie has an intention to answer, Richie will never know. He hangs up before he can start rambling, shaking his head in frustration with himself.

What time of morning it is no longer matters, because Richie decides very quickly that he’s not going back to sleep. He turns on a few more lights, if nothing else for the sake of eliminating some of those corner shadows, and ultimately he ends up sitting on his couch, the TV on in the background just to keep the ringing silence at bay. He hates that silence more than anything, maybe more than the lights.

After a long time of just sitting there and zoning out, Richie turns his left hand over and stares at it. The scar has been gone for months now, just as everything has been over and done with for _ months _, and some completely insane part of him misses seeing it. He and the others had been through so much, and now the physical mark of it had been erased.

He remembers the moment when they’d all realized the scars were gone; Eddie had had this look of overwhelming relief on his face, and Richie’s first instinct had been panic, hadn’t it? Fear that all the other strangely sentimental things he remembered were wiped from the face of the earth. Because that was a normal thing to be afraid of, of course, the loss of memories of being fucked with by an immortal clown.

But back in Derry, there is still a bridge with a crudely carved ** _R + E_ ** in its side, and that is enough of a legacy. 

That town deserves to forget everything about him but his love. Fuck it.

There is suddenly a loud, rapid knock at his door, and Richie flies to his feet before he can think better of it. That’s probably karma for thinking ill of that town— stupid, _ stupid _ fucking town— but he knows he’s not going to open that door to Pennywise.

He shouldn’t open the door at all, but it’s three in the morning, so whoever is there has to be crazy, or so lost that he would feel like a dick if he didn’t answer.

Richie pushes his glasses back up into their place and takes a deep breath, trying to force a level of calmness over himself before he starts getting full-body shakes again. 

Whoever he’s expecting when he swings open his door, it’s not Eddie. Not Eddie looking like he literally ran here, quietly panting and only seeming to take his shoulders down from his ears when Richie is in full view.

Richie, who is standing there in dirty glasses, a sweat stained shirt, and his underwear, and who is suddenly feeling very stupid.

“Did you run here?” Richie asks, not moving and not entirely sure he hadn't fallen asleep back on the couch. “Because like, holy shit, dude.”

Eddie goes from concerned to exasperated just as quick as he always does. “I drove, dipshit. Because you scared the hell out of me.”

He doesn’t know if Eddie is just good at giving a guilt trip, or if Richie just inherently feels guilty all the time, especially in the context of making Eddie worry. Maybe it’s both.

“Sorry,” he manages, a little slow because, frankly, he’s still processing that Eddie just showed up at his apartment in the middle of the night, just to check up on him. It makes something warm rise up in his chest, and he’s definitely going to die of embarrassment now.

Eddie just shakes his head, to seemingly no one but himself, and the exasperation is gone just as quickly as it had come. “Gonna let me inside?”

Richie falters again, but this time his body is able to operate on some form of autopilot. He opens the door a little wider and steps to the side, letting Eddie step in before he pushes the door shut again with his arm.

In the aftermath of post-Derry, almost everyone had gone back home, back to their lives. Richie doesn’t remember much of that first week outside of a lot of drinking, a lot of sleeping, and a half dozen guys he’d made out with in the corners of night spots. He considers that his reward for saving the known world.

But it was once Richie finally got back into his normal, only sometimes chaotic life, that he finally heard from Eddie again. He was moving across the country- he was getting _ divorced _ \- and he was asking _ Richie _ for help with it all.

Aside from the killing the clown thing, that’s one of Richie’s prouder moments. 

Out of everyone, all their friends who were physically closer to him, Richie was the one Eddie had called upon to help him move. Richie got the honor of helping him away from Norma Bates 2.0, he got to start living knowing that Eddie was only ten minutes away as opposed to what might as well have been the other side of the world.

It’s still weird though, to be reminded that Eddie can just drive over and come up to his doorstep. Not that they don’t see each other-- far from it-- but it’s never been like this. Never at three in the fucking morning.

“Sorry for scaring you,” Richie shakes himself from his head, deciding he might want to stop standing there and staring off at nothing. “You could’ve just called me back, though. Texted. Pigeon mail.”

Eddie sits on the arm of the couch, and Richie realizes that he’s wearing one of Richie’s old hoodies, baggy and bleached out from being washed a few too many times. They have a tendency to share clothes (they’re both single men living in fuck-all expensive California, he’s rationaled it, why wouldn’t they?) but it still feels like having a shoe thrown at his head. He needs to find pants to put on.

Richie realizes he’s gone through another _ moment _ in his head, and he hopes he hasn’t missed Eddie’s response because he was too busy staring at what is technically _ his own hoodie _.

Thankfully he hasn’t; Eddie simply shrugs and sticks his hands into his pockets. He looks tired, but somehow still more alert than Richie looks and feels. “Yeah, well. I figured you were either already going to be asleep again, and if you weren’t, I didn’t think you’d want to be alone.”

95% of the time, Richie has the constant urge to kiss Eddie completely under control. He is veering dangerously towards that 5% danger zone.

“Aw, you were worried about me?” Richie’s smile grows ear to ear. He knows how to ruin a moment. “You save my life one time and you can’t wait to be my white knight again, huh, Eds?”

Eddie simply rolls his eyes and flips him off, and both of them are laughing and it’s a good enough distraction from remembering that moment. If Richie keeps laughing then he can pretend he wasn’t crying a half hour ago about exactly that thing.

“Well if you’re staying, I’m getting something to drink. Pants, probably, too.”

“Oh, God, not on my account,” Eddie is still smiling as he stretches, a lazy effort to bat away the desire to sleep they can both feel on the edges of the room.

He’s not looking, so Richie feels a little less stupid for blushing.

Richie walks quickly back into his bedroom and grabs the first pair of sweats he steps on, still bouncing from foot to foot even as he’s already on his way into the kitchen. Eddie really shouldn’t be the livewire that he is for Richie, shouldn’t be able to shoot him so full of energy that he’s all but bouncing off the walls. Being around Eds has always made him feel like a kid again; it always has, and he suspects it always will.

He has a lot of whiskey, a lot of beer, and a lot of soda. Richie strongly suspects that anything he brings out is going to earn him a lecture either way, and he’s not sure if his goal is to get drunk yet, so he grabs a Coke for Eddie and the beer can closest to it.

When he comes back to the living room, Eddie is standing again, looking precariously up at the ceiling fan teetering on each rotation.

“I think I’m less worried about you dying on your way out of bed than I am for you being crushed by that thing.” he comments, as if this is the first time he’s been inside the apartment for an extended period of time.

Richie cracks a smile and joins Eddie at his side. “Okay, white knight, if you want me to grab us hard hats I will.” And that earns him a gentle jab in the ribs, so Richie makes a point to press one of the cans against Eddie’s neck, making him jump, before properly handing it off to him and stepping over to flop gracelessly onto the couch.

“Jesus, Rich, at this time of night?” Eddie’s eyebrows go up as the man opens the can with a satisfying crack.

Richie shrugs. “Five o’clock somewhere, right?”

“Yeah, here. In like two hours. _ In the morning _.”

“Then my point stands.” Richie raises his drink softly before taking a long swig, trying not to smile as he hears Eddie grumble.

The couch dips once Eddie joins him, so comfortable with being close that their legs press firmly together. They don’t need to be, the couch isn’t _ small _, they just are.

No one says anything for a while, which shouldn’t be an issue, but the combination of _ Eddie _ and _ silence _ isn’t doing much to make Richie think about anything else but deadlights. And suddenly every light he has on is way too bright. Suddenly he’s frozen at the idea of looking to his right, the possibility that Eddie is somehow going to be gone, or, worse, that he’s going to be dying again.

Richie wishes he had a lower tolerance for alcohol.

It can’t be hard to sense that he’s starting to freak out again, and very soon after Richie’s thoughts start to pick up speed, he feels Eddie’s hand carefully come down on his arm. 

The touch doesn’t burn him anymore, the way it used to, but it’s still being touched by Eddie. It still delivers a jolt.

“You can talk about it,” Eddie says, gentle.

Richie’s eyes continue to avoid him, and he hates the pit in his stomach. “I know I can, it’s just I’d rather get thrown down another sewer than actually think about it.”

“So you’re going to just sit there and be sad anyway.”

“Maybe!”

Richie finally looks over at him, mostly just to be petty. But Eddie looks more worried than he does frustratedly playing along, and so now Richie just feels like a dick. _ He drove here in the dead of night to check up on you, dipshit, at least _ try _ to be serious. _

“I just keep seeing what I saw in the lights,” Richie finally mumbles, setting his beer down and pushing it away before pressing himself further into the couch with a harsh exhale. “I feel sick and frozen and I just-- it’s _ real _ again and it scares me and I fucking hate it.”

Beverly’s nightmares stopped after they killed Pennywise, and Richie’s haven’t. He figures it’s because while her’s were genuine premonitions, his are just plain old fucking nightmares. He’s just scared.

Eddie is quiet at first, and then carefully he turns his body to rest his legs over Richie’s lap. His face is even closer now, both unnerving and undeniably calming.

“You’re acting like I’m going to make fun of you for being scared. You’re talking to _ me _ , Richie-” and Richie laughs at that, which earns him a light shove, “-like I don’t have regular fucking heart attacks because of _ normal _ shit.”

Richie looks over at Eddie, and Eddie is looking at him with such fondness it’s some actual agony that works its way into Richie’s chest.

Too many times, he’s thought about what would’ve happened if he’d kissed him that day in the cave. Eddie had saved him, and in turn, Richie had very quickly returned the favor; how hard would it have been, rolled into the rocks and staring at the claw plunged into the ground where they had been just seconds earlier? How _ easy _ would it have been to grab him and just have done it, blood and relief still roaring in Richie’s ears?

But he’d been too scared even then, even in the moment where he knows he should’ve stolen that chance he almost lost forever. It almost seems cowardly to continue to consider it, all this time later, with such low stakes in comparison.

“_ You _ didn’t see _ you _ die,” Richie’s voice is a whisper, and that is as much detail as he’s given the man as to what he saw inside the deadlights. “Two fucking minutes in that place and I saw you-- and-and _ everyone _ \--” _ Nice save, _ “die so many fucking times, and every time it was _ real _.”

The end of his thought is stuck in his throat, a horrifyingly raw _ I _ ** _lost you_ ** _ so many times, and even after all of that, after this weird second chance, I’m still this fucking coward and you’re so _ ** _dense_ ** _ , you have no idea! _

Richie shakes his head and runs his hand through his hair (he is still so _ sweaty _), feeling that age-old guilt again with Eddie’s face turning worried.

“No,” Eddie agrees, just as quiet, “and I don’t think I could’ve handled even a portion of that. Just when I saw you floating thirty fucking feet up-- shit, dude, I thought that was it. I thought I was just going to get stuck there like I did in the Neibolt house and you were actually going to die.”

“Yeah, Eds, and then you spearheaded the fucker, and I didn’t die.”

“And I didn’t either,” There are the faintest hints of a smile on Eddie’s lips, but the rest of his face is stone cold serious. “Your dumb ass saved my life for, what, the twentieth time in our lives? I’m never going to _ get _ to die because you’re always going to inexplicably show up and fucking- backsass death into a corner again.”

There’s such confidence in the way Eddie says that, and yet. And yet Richie can still see him bleeding out and dying every time he closes his eyes. Because in some universe, he just laid there as that monster murdered him.

“Considering you know exactly what I’m like, you’ve got way too much confidence in me, Eds.”

Richie has definitely been sitting still for too long, he needs to move, and so he starts to stand up, pushing at Eddie’s legs. He’s not expecting for Eddie to push back against him, using his weight to sit Richie right back down again, only a quick reposition away from being fully on his lap. It doesn’t even occur to him until several seconds later that Eddie has a hand on his chest now, and once he notices it, it’s burning through his shirt and right to the skin.

“You killed a clown twice, two more times than most people will ever have to, and you’re still successful and exactly the same like none of that shit was ever a big deal. You’re Richie fucking Tozier, where the _ fuck _ is _ your _ confidence?”

Eddie wets his lips, Richie knows he should have a joke here to cut the livewire tension, and he has absolutely nothing. He’s overwhelmed, guilty, completely in love, and just the slightest bit turned on; in that order.

The last time he felt the metaphorical spotlight on his heart like this was in that cave, as he hovered over Eddie, head still throbbing from the lights. He’d hugged the man like it was the last chance he’d ever get, ignored the “you’re suffocating me, dipshit” Eddie had whispered into his shoulder, and then helped him up so they could run for their lives again; so Richie could spend the last however many months wishing he’d been just a little braver.

This time, thinking about it feels like a dare to himself. _ Where the fuck is your confidence, Tozier? _

“Apparently with you,” Richie says, tone flat but too quiet to be a real quip.

Eddie starts to smile, but it fades back once he seems to realize that Richie isn’t trying to fuck around. Maybe it’s because he still has his hand on Richie’s chest, and he can feel how hard and fast his heart is bouncing up against his ribs. He doesn’t appear to know what to do either.

In his head, it feels like Richie grabs Eddie and plunges them both over the edge of the world’s tallest, scariest cliff like the maniac he is. In reality, he’s started shaking again, and his hand comes up to Eddie’s shoulder, and the kiss comes just a moment later.

His lips are dry, he can feel desperation rising up in his throat like a tidal wave, and it should be the clumsiest thing he’s ever done. His hand fists up in the hoodie. And yet Eddie does not recoil. Instead, his mouth moves against Richie’s, soft and hard simultaneously; an equal force to match.

It’s a beautiful kiss for as long as it lasts, and Richie is completely absorbed in every tiny detail of it. If this is all a dream, it should’ve turned to fucked up by now, and it hasn’t. Eddie is kissing him, Richie is kissing _ him _. It takes a good minute for a nagging question to pop in.

Richie abruptly pulls his head back.

There is a very, very long beat of total silence, and he asks, “How long?”

Eddie frowns. “What?”

“Eddie. How long. How fucking long, Eddie, how--”

“I don’t know!” his answer is just barely not a shout, face bright red within seconds. “Fuck you, dude, I hardly have _ events _ back, let alone a _ timeline _\--”

Richie kisses him again, because if he doesn’t, he’s going to walk outside and scream until the sun rises. Eddie’s talking about memories still being unearthed after Derry, and those date back so far that it doesn’t even feel real. Richie is going to kill him. Eddie’s hand moves from Richie’s chest into his hair, grip _ tight _, and he kisses like he has an ear to Richie’s desperation.

It’s not an angry thing, though. Both of them seem to take a breath once they realize they’re still going, once neither one wakes up from some fucked up dream, once neither one vanishes from the other’s touch. They each take a deep breath, no more than an inch apart. Richie brings his other hand up to the back of Eddie’s neck, a nonverbal plea that he doesn’t move. Don’t leave. Don’t die.

“You’re such an idiot,” Eddie whispers in the tiniest voice, and it’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to him.

Richie leans back into the couch cushions, just staring at him. There’s a soft shadow against Eddie’s cheek where the faintest scar remains. He caves to the urge and traces his hand up to it, frames his jaw and rests his thumb against the mark like Eddie is glass.

“You too, white knight,” Richie gets shoved again, but then they’re kissing again and he’s never cared less about words in his life.

He finally gets himself out from under Eddie’s weight, turning onto his side and keeping Eddie just slightly underneath him; Eddie has always been so much smaller, it’s not too hard. And Richie is still grinning from ear to ear, kissing him slow and deep because anything else feels improper. With a little more movement he could have Eddie on his back, he could be over him in a way that’s finally romantic and not protective, but he might still have a heart attack just from _ this _; he puts a pin in the visual, though.

Once breathing finally gets a little higher on the priority list, Richie just rests his face against the crook of Eddie’s neck. He’s warm. Richie wraps his arms around the man’s middle and hugs him, and he feels like he could have a good happy-cry at any moment. He’s not going to, because _ fuck _, he would never hear the end of it, but he gets dangerously close when one of Eddie’s hands run slowly through his hair. He melts into the touch.

Richie realizes this is the first time all night he’s felt truly calm. He might not let either of them ever leave this couch.

Eddie presses a kiss to the side of his head, and Richie can hear him quietly giggling and that’s the cutest thing he’s _ ever _heard. Being brave seems to come in sporadic bursts for them, and this feels like the first time they’ve been able to good and truly sync up. Richie is going to spend the rest of his life being thankful for it.

**Author's Note:**

> richie and eddie have an R/relationships post that’s like “my best friend and i share clothes and are in love with each other, but i’m scared he doesn’t like me? send thoughts” and they’re both valid idiots for it
> 
> follow me on twitter @riseofinnpoe for more consistently posted nonsense


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